The series was surely guilty for my interest in space exploration...
I remember that it was broadcast when I couldn´t even read, but when I heard the music I would leave all the toys and come running to the living room screaming completely euphoric "It's MinóMinó!!!", Space 1999 in portuguese is an hard expression for a 3 years old kid to say...Espaço Mil Novecentos e Noventa e Nove...
Never forgot it and when the internet arrived one of the first things I went looking for was the theme...How I love that groovy theme...
And those Eagles...
And Maya...
And those freakin-something-like-algae monsters...
It brings some very good memories...

Here goes...
The opening sequence

And a very looong wikipedia article...

Oh man...Friday and I'm in a nostalgia mood...
We were in 1981, and even today that music gives me the shivers...It's in portuguese, the lyrics go on something like this...

Up there, there are endless plains
There are stars that seem to run
There's the Sun and the day rising
And we here without stopping on a turning Earth

Up there, there's a satin sky
There are comets, there are endless planets
Galileu had a dream like this
There's a ship in space rising step by step

Up there it can be the future
Joy, let's jump off the world
and laughing, united in an embrace (or a hug if you wish )
Let's tell a story
Once upon a time the Space...

lalalalalala

Up there there are no sentinels anymore
Simphony all made out of stars
A house with no doors or windows
It's to reach out an arm and you are in Space!

Does ANY of you remember this?

I was also a fan of the series when I was a child, although I confess that I was terrorized by episodes like "the dragon's domain"
Here in Italy there was an exhibition of spaceship models, costumes etc and teather showings of the series on 13 September 1999

Yes, Gerry Anderson's Space 1999 was good... but my interest in space was already at a high level.

The show that first TOTALLY got me hooked on space travel was one of Anderson's first space-related series:

Fireball XL-5. I watched this as a small kid in the early 1960s and that opening sequence just totally blew me away every time. (And note how after launch, looking out the cockpit, the view changes from bright sky to black space. That gave me such a yearning to go into space!) Check out the opening on YouTube at this link. And the closing song is still a favorite and very clever theme!

XL-5 opening/ending

Although I was already grown up, I thought Dragon's Domain was well done and creepy. The haunting music used during his lonely return trip (I think it was Albinoni's Adagio) was a stroke a genius.

Click to view attachment

There's a promo here...

EDITED: And yes it was Albinoni's Adagio...This is a gold mine...

Man...THAT brought back some memories! Thanks, Ustrax!

1999 was sporadically available in syndication on my local station in Montana when I was a kid...it was always a treat when I could find it.

I really like British SF series & movies from this era...come to think of it, it seems like it was almost all Gerry Anderson's stuff. Remember UFO? Also, did you ever see Journey to the Far Side of the Sun? Good times, good times...

Special delivery for Mr. nprev!
UFO
I couldn't find nothing on youtube from the Journey to the Far Side of the Sun...

RedSky, although I was not around to see those series, there was still supermarionation in my childhood...
My favourite was this one...I built and rebuilt that x-bomber over and over with Lego pieces...

Great nostalgia moments!

Remember those series (1999, UFO) during my childhood too.

What's also interesting is that those movies were shown as the (not so) far future --and 10, 20, 30 years *is* far feature for a kid, don't forget that-- and, well, where are 1980 (UFO) and 1999 right now?

Ustrax, you are the MAN!!! Thanks so much; that theme gave me the chills. The rather attractive purple-haired female Moonbase personnel also produced a physiological effect... ...apparently, this series was more influential in my life than I had realized!

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun was released in American theatres around 1972. I saw it as a Saturday kid's matinee (sp?) around then, and then once later on TV sometime in the 80s. Apparently, it was originally released under the name Doppelganger in the UK, and I found a clip for the trailer (kind of a slow-loader, so be patient):

http://videodetective.com/default.asp?fram...ublishedID=3609

And as long as we're on the subject, here are two other great British SF flicks of the time:

Quatermass and the Pit (Five Million Years to Earth in the US).
Crack in the World

I was also a fan of the show, as you can tell from my avatar.

Other UK blasts from the past...

The ever-wonderful BLAKES 7 (aaah, Orac, now there was a REAL computer!), the "what the *** was that about?" STAR COPS, and the wonderfully-awful STAR MAIDENS... was there ever a cheesier, more dreadful sci-fi show? Made BUTTON MOON look like FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON...

And of course...This gentleman and this special words...
When I saw that I almost shouted Hallellujah!
I used to think in those exact terms and thought I was the only one...

Yeah...sure do miss Carl. Wish that he'd lived to see the MERs.

Yes...I was 7 when Cosmos was transmitted here and I was addicted to it...
My favourite episode was the one about travelling at the speed of light...
Can't recall the title...I'll search for it...

EDITED: Here it is!

I just have to add my $.02 here...

I grew up on Gerry Anderson's "Supermarionation" work. I loved Fireball XL-5, and can still sing the theme song. My absolute favorite piece of Anderson-tech was Supercar. I was so taken with that vehicle that I was crushed when I failed to receive a toy model of it on my 8th birthday. (No matter how many times I told my parents that I *really* wanted a Supercar for a birthday or Christmas, over at least a three-year period, I never, ever got one. I had to make my own Supercar models using Tinkertoys and/or Legos.)

But...

Maybe it's because I was older when Space: 1999 came out, or maybe it's because it was a highly-touted live-action s.f. TV offering, of which there had been relatively few good examples. But I found Space: 1999 a pretty lame attempt to combine space opera with hard science fiction.

The base concept -- that an explosion in an expended nuclear fuel dump could hurl Earth's Moon out of orbit and accelerate it to such a great speed that it would leave the Solar System in a matter of days -- was such bad *science* that I was turned off by it. I mean, do y'all have *any* idea of how much energy it would require to propel that much mass that quickly? If you tried to apply that kind of energy to the Moon within the very short time frame presented, you wouldn't propel it out of the Solar System, you would shatter it into a gazillion pieces.

The Eagle spacecraft were very kewl-looking... but I didn't care for the clouds of dust they kicked up on the airless Moon. By the mid-1970's, we all knew quite well that dust doesn't hang in the "air" on a body with no atmosphere. Again, bad science began to ruin it for me.

And finally, I just wasn't all that impressed with the characters and situations presented in the stories. The acting direction didn't bring out the cast's strengths, and the whole thing just sort of sat there, leaden and lifeless. At least, thus it seemed to me at the time.

Had the same concept and stories been presented in Anderson's Supermarionation and presented as a Saturday morning "cartoon" entry, I probably would have been somewhat fond of the effort. But as a very highly touted "next coming of Star Trek" into "adult" TV science fiction, it fell far short of expectations and was a rather severe disappointment to me.



-the other Doug

Clearly we have here the generation who knew the chocolade bar TWIX as RAIDER about 25 years ago

The COSMOS series by Carl Sagan is available as an all-region DVD set via Amazon.com or via:
http://www.carlsagan.com/

And free of charge here...:

Yes, Other Doug... I loved Supercar too. But that was before XL5; I was even younger and Mike Mercury just seemed a little too scary for me with his hard features, big eyes and huge eyebrows.... but I loved the car. But in XL5, I was just awed by the impression of size with the ship, and the novelty of XL-Jr separating and landing.

Anyway... here's one for you... Supaah

Edit: Oh, and agree regarding most of 1999... but I wasn't brave enough to point out the implausibility. My other issue with that show (by 1975 I was a physics/astronomy major in college) was how did the moon, drifting through interstellar space (at sub-light speeds) manage to pass nearby a planet so often? And how did they often know the names of those new planets (Ultima Thule?)

You can Direct Santa Claus to this link:

Space 1999 Megaset

Remember the LADIES on UFO? (Rowrrrrr)

I guess I wouldn't miss not having a jetpak or flying car so much if we had this future instead....

(It's so very scientific, trust me.)

Doug, I think age is foundemantal when you see a movie/serial for the first time.
I was about 8-11 years old when italian television broadcasted the two Anderson's series "UFO" and "Space1999" and I was deeply impressed by both, especially the latter. I loved first S1999 season, but I hated the second one; this is only partially due to the differences between the two (2nd season was produced by US and for this reason was made to better match Star-Trek fans preferences).
The science facts are absolutely opinable and I was partially conscious of this at the epoch... neverthless, contrary to you, I loved most characters and situations presented in the stories. Beside bad science, the sense of mistery and the (sometimes scaring) obscure destiny dominating the Alpha station journey and captured my fantasy as nothing else.
I recently buyed the DVD, now I clearly see all the limits you listed but... I'm still loving it!
Clearly, we all are victims of our time!!!

Hey Rui, and others who at such a young age were so impressed by Cosmos: I really admire you, and what great people and minds you are. Just to show how age and seeing a show matters (as has been mentioned here):

When Cosmos first aired, I was in my mid 20s's, and was a total space buff. When I watched it (as a product of the space age in the US), I guess I wanted a hard-core fact-filled science show. All these side trips Carl made to see Tibetan folks spinning prayer wheels, talk about the Hindu gods Shiva, etc... left me cold. I thought he was being really pompous. I loved Carl for his visible face during Viking and several appearences on Nova back then.... but I thought Cosmos was over the top at the time.

When PBS re-broadcast it last year (25 years after I first saw it) I watched it and I swear I was moved to tears at each episode by the time Carl gave his closing talk. What a difference in perspective 25 years of living provides. Now, it seemed so profound, inspiring and insightful. So, for you guys who were so impressed at such a young age... I truely admire you! It took me a long time to reach where you were so long ago.

- John

I probably saw all the 1999 shows,one thing I remember was that the show always left me feeling sort of depressed for some reason,the episodes seemed so dark. Very unquic in that aspect as far as tv shows go for me.....

For me, the most memorable space moment from my childhood seen on TV was the (first?) launch of (I guess) Space Shuttle Challenger. It was a rare live broadcast on Portuguese TV (not much interested in covering space issues) in the middle of the afternoon, in a time where TV only broadcast after 18h!!!

So no commercials, no breaks, no reports, just some comments and live images. Beautifull and memorable.
I should have been around 7 or 8 at the time and all of that was very moving at the time.

Also, the TV set at the time was still a B/W valve model... so... I have a unique memory of monochrome and vintage shuttle launch!!!

As for Space 1999, I also watched it when I was very young. I couldn't read the subtitles, so my parents read the show live for me!!! When a monster appeared they told me not to look! I still remember peeking from behind the couch to see the burned "energy man" that sucked life from base personnel.

Cosmos, of course, was very appealing for its time and a family show. Both scientific and human content, and a very cleaver show.

And finally a reference to "Il Etait une fois... l'espace" (once upon a time... the space). Very nice cartoon "edutainment" that introduced a generation to the terminology of science fiction!

Yes Nunes...I knew you would have seen it...Listening Paulo de Carvalho singing the main theme still gives me the chills...

RedSky...
I believe I made the opposite path you did...Since I remember me I was always focused on the "outside", the Space, the Planets, the Voyages...
Then "real life" made me land again on good old mother Earth...That is way, this era, started with MER is so important to me...I'm back to my childhood dreams with all this amazing toys at display via internet...
It is a dream come true on a different time...Sometimes I feel I have gone through a deep sleep and woke up today with all the wishes fullfilled...
That view gets me all emotional...
Thinking that I'm 3,4,5,6,7,8 years old and that I'm watching real time images, sharing real time ideas with the people who make it possible...
That is why I never ceased to dream.
Now it is time to rewatch Cosmos and cry till I'm dry...

Ustrax, I subscribe every single word.
Thanks to you/forum/MER for this flashback!

Well, trax, I just think you were distracted for a time. I'll bet you've always had the spirit of a dreamer, explorer, poet and philosopher in you the whole time. And I'll add my voice to others who've mentioned it: thanks for starting this trip down memory lane.
- John
PS: I like your website... seems incredibly interesting; probably moreso if I could read Portuguese! (Still looking at changes in Ultreya, I see )

I was of two minds when I watched the original run in my early teens. I liked the special effects, which stood out in the 1970s SF-TV wasteland, but I was constantly brought out of the story by the scientific impossibilities.

That episode, though... I admit that it terrified me. My father, who was watching it at the same time as I was, thought that it was ridiculous, and not frightening in the least. Of course, he had been through WW2 himself, so he would have had different standards about what is frightening and what is not.

Bill

Maybe just directed the nose in other directions trying to catch the smell of discovery in other areas...What is curious is that all those, the pilgrimages, philosophy, poetry, the silence of a bright winter morning, all of them, fused, indicate one direction...Onward...
And facing that the children dreams we all had we're not only dreams...Because there were people actually bringing them to reality...All the people envolved in space exploration break down the walls separating those kids with eyes lost in the distance we all were and the worlds we, in our innocence, dared to dream...
That's why I'm so proud of Human nature and, naturally, of those who, waving the flag of adventure, lead the way, materialized creatures of fiction...

The website...that's a big russian salad, everything fits there...But mainly texts about paths I've taken among other unidentified objects...

Oh, yes, I do indeed, Dan...check out post #10 on this thread...

Funny, I somehow never managed to be exposed to UFO. That's a cool looking series, much better than Space 1999 (which I watched regularly when it was broadcast, but find it doesn't stand re-watching). I may just have to order the dvd set and have a look at this.

Somehow I doubt any female members have the same fond memories of the submarine crews' beige string vests...!!!!

Me too! UFO was really heavy on action & cool technology, but I'm afraid that most of the plot nuances may have escaped me at my age then; I have no doubt that this aspect was also excellent. Plus, as EGD pointed out, the women were, to say the least, stunning (with apologies to our female forum members; this was a very effective marketing ploy for the target audience...who am I to ignore it? )

Sorry for the add-on, but I really love this thread! I am gratified (and somewhat amazed) at how influential SF television series like 1999 & UFO were on so many of us.

Sadly, I think that the recent generations are so saturated by special effects that their imaginations aren't allowed to run free. Cheesy, primitive effects generally left a lot to the viewer's imagination, which of course produced an ongoing interest beyond the immediate experience...and thereby produced, well, rocket scientists. We need to recapture this dynamic.

As to modern special effects, after seeing the initial miniseries of the new Battlestar Galactica, particularly the view of H-bombs exploding on Caprica as seen from orbit, I decided that I would no longer be impressed with special effects. They have effectively achieved realism indistinguishable from reality, even on a made-for-tv series. Henceforth special effects will take their appropriate place as incidental to the story, rather than the focus.

I sure hope that's true. Plot had to be the central focus way back when, because suspension of disbelief was so hard to achieve.

Still, there are some interesting possibilities with this new technology. For example, would anyone else love to see just-like-the-book movies of Heinlein's Red Planet or Niven's Ringworld? That would rock!!!

I understand UFO's popularity amongst the gentlemen was due to the suspension of other things.

...certainly it was a significant factor, Lyford! In fact, I believe that my entry into adolescence was accelerated about three years by that show...

OK so we all know what's on the minds of the UMSF guys in California.

Yes, it's now possible to present on film just about anything. Ringworld, Rendezvous with Rama, you name it -- it can be done.

I'm actually sort of amused that the people who run the Star Trek franchise have picked up on a suggestion I made several years ago. They're re-releasing the original series episodes for syndication, with "sweetened" special effects. They've replaced those fuzzy colored-ball planets with real-looking planets, made the old Enterprise look much better (and move more realistically), along with other little enhancements. They also digitized the old film stock and brightened/balanced the colors. It's a much sharper-looking show, with far better effects than were possible in the 1960s.

They didn't go as far as I would have, though (probably because it would have been way too costly) -- redesigning the interiors of the ship. It could be done, they could change the look of the panels and displays, even change the colors and all the minor detailing. But they'd have to work around the actors as they moved through the scene, and that probably would be prohibitively time-consuming and expensive for the entire run of the original series.

-the other Doug

What a thought...Can you imagine an IMAX version of Rendezvous with Rama?

Seriously, if anybody here has any connection whatsoever with the SciFi Channel, this should be pitched. I can't think of anything more entertaining than truly bringing SF classics to life, nor can I imagine anything that might turn on our young people more to the wonders of space. We need this.

I'm not all that enthusiastic about the Sci-Fi Channel's adaptations. Ever see the mess they made out of "Riverworld"?

They done some good stuff, but made some really bad shlock, too. To be decent, I think any adaptation of a good sf novel would have to be done by a producer and director who were committed to filming the piece properly, not someone who's looking to see how many flashing lights and kewl explosions he/she can cram into 92 minutes...

-the other Doug

My gratitude to "Space1999" arise also from another reason: the illustrated books published in Italy, containing beautiful appendix on astronautics with amazing drawings and future projects descriptions.
This made me a real space and astronomy enthusiast, so thanks again!

Yeah, I just cited them as the most likely source of potential interest. Actually, anyone in the movie industry might well be much better. Thinking of asking Emily to contact Steven Spielberg, who's on the TPS executive committee...this could be viewed as a community outreach effort.

Sometimes good stuff comes out - the problem is that with Sci-fi the success rate is a bit on the low side. That said Battlestar Galactica's resurrection\transformation shows that some passion, determination and 21st century special effects can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
I still think that good literary SciFi presents a major challenge - Special effects alone cannot overcome all of the challenges presented by some of the conceits that allow stories like Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" (Cuddly alien spider babies) and Iain M Banks "The Player of Games" (The Imperial game's vast multi sensory premise) to work. Likewise I think that "The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy" movie was always destined to be a pale shadow of the original radio play.

But I'd love to see someone try all the same and pale shadow or not I like THHGTTG movie.

I've always thought that Gerry Anderson and associates really honestly tried, but had a classical case of hollywood (brit's version) utter cluelessness and unclueability of how to do Science Fiction, and the difference between Science Fiction and SciFi.

Hollywood types think "if it looks kewl, do it". SF writers take an unrealistic assumption (or pre-realistic assumption) and run with it, treating the results with essential realism. Spielberg has almost always done SciFi. "Gross <sic> Encounters of the Third Kind" is typical scifi. His "Minority Report" is the hardest, most internally consistent Science Fiction he's done.

The original BattleStar Galaxative <sic> was typical lame derivitive hollywood scifi, while the new BattleStar is grittily realistic in it's assumptions and plotting.

I've long thought you could take the skeletal IDEA "Space 1899" <sic> (1899 was about the level of the Anderson's and their scriptwriters knowledge of astronomy) and do one hell of a good Science Fiction series based on the idea.

Imagine.. 2049. US, Russian/European, Chinese bases on the moon, competing, somewhat cooperating. An international Post-Einsteinian field physics laboratory being finished to test high-power dark-energy physics based science. They fire up the first run of the experiment and... <insert gobs of special effects here>... the Earth is gone....the SUN is gone.... low orbit lunar spacecraft are still in orbit.. (the field volume was that big)... and a globular cluster is taking up the sky from horizon to 45 deg elevation.

Uhoh....

What happened?... How do they survive with the supply lines from Earth cut... (things are only partly self-sustaining.) Can they COOPERATE well enough to survive! Can they repair the experiment hardware and do it again without trashing stuff.. can they learn how to navigate with it.. can they get home... If so.. the galaxy is open.

Take the barebones assumption and you could have one hell of a good series. If -- big if -- you know what you're doing.

Ahhh, what might have been...

Click to view attachment

Heh, heh, heh...Stu, you're just having way too much fun with your new toy...

Ed, I like your thinking, and maybe the new BG is a harbinger of things to come. I actually haven't seen it yet, but you're not the first person to tell me it's good...guess I gotta check it out!

Still, I sure wish we could find someone influential and science-savvy enough in the movie industry to make the classics live on the big (or small!) screen. Can you imagine a mini-series of Heinlein's "juvenile" novels? I mentioned Red Planet before...I want to see Willis bouncing around the edge of a canal exactly as Clifford Geary first drew him in that wonderful, wonderous novel....same general idea goes for The Star Beast, Time for the Stars, Citizen of the Galaxy, Between Planets , etc...

And one step further. How about The Stars My Destination, Way Station and all the other seminal, now almost forgotten, novels that produced the generation that put us on the Moon? I am certain that faithful movie versions of these works would light a small but significant number of youngsters on fire...the critical members of the generation that can put us on Mars & beyond.